Twenty years have passed since world leaders offered an unconditional surrender to alien forces and XCOM, the planet's last line of defense, was left decimated and scattered. Now the aliens rule Earth, building shining cities that promise a brilliant future for humanity on the surface, while concealing a sinister agenda below and eliminating all who dissent from their new order. Only those who live at the edges of the world have a margin of freedom. Here, a force gathers once again to stand up for humanity. Always on the run, the remnant XCOM forces must find a way to rise from the ashes, expose the insidious truth behind the occupation, and eliminate the alien threat once and for all.

Take command of the Avenger, an alien supply craft converted to XCOM’s mobile headquarters. New open-ended gameplay lets you decide where to guide your strike team, how to grow popular support, and when to combat enemy counter-operations.

Five soldier classes, each with its own skill tree, let you create specific soldiers for your tactical plan.

New gameplay systems offer more tactical flexibility in combat. Use concealment to ambush enemy patrols. Loot enemies for precious gear and artifacts. Rescue VIPs and save fallen comrades by carrying them to the extraction point.

A diverse cast of enemies from powerful new alien species to the ADVENT, enforcers of the alien regime, offer a distinct tactical challenge.

Configure and build rooms on the Avenger to give XCOM new capabilities on the battlefield. Use your Scientists and Engineers to research, develop and upgrade weapons and armor to fit your preferred tactics.

Go on missions around the world, from wildlands to the heart of the alien-controlled megacities, to the depths of alien installations. There are virtually infinite combinations of maps, missions and goals.

Community-focused tools allow you to create your own campaign, tactical gameplay, aliens, classes, strategy game features, and share within the Steam Workshop.

Mix-and-match squads of humans and aliens and battle head-to-head on randomly-generated maps in multiplayer.

XCOM 2 ANNOUNCED -- IGN FIRST

Fight to free Earth from alien domination in the PC-exclusive sequel.

Today, IGN First officially announces that the game 2K hinted at is in fact Firaxis Games’ XCOM 2, a full sequel to 2012’s critically acclaimed XCOM: Enemy Unknown and a continuation of the now 20-year-old legendary turn-based tactical squad combat series, which will be available exclusively on PC this November. Watch the debut trailer above for a glimpse into a future where the aliens are in control of the Earth, and XCOM has gone underground to fight to overthrow their Advent government. This new guerrilla force will face more powerful enemies in unpredictable combat scenarios as they fight to turn the tables on a technologically superior enemy.

Over the next month IGN will reveal huge details about XCOM 2, uncovered during our visit to Firaxis’ Maryland studio. Tomorrow you’ll get an in-depth overview and interview with Creative Director Jake Solomon that’ll highlight the major new features, including new soldier classes, new aliens, stealth-infused tactics, procedurally generated maps, and more. Following that, we’ll have a Rewind Theater examination of all the details in today’s trailer reveal with Solomon and Lead Producer Garth DeAngelis.

And, later this week we’ll go in-depth with Solomon and DeAngelis on the reasons behind the bold move to take XCOM from a multiplatform series to a PC exclusive, and how XCOM 2 will be tailored to take advantage of that single platform’s strengths – followed by Firaxis’ exciting plans to support modders and their work.

You might notice a lack of gameplay video, but fear not: in two weeks, we’ll debut the first in-game footage of XCOM 2 on our IGN E3 Live Show.

So time keeps ticking in XCOM 2, and the best we can do is make the right choices when we have the chance. XCOM 2 imparts the weight of those decisions, and that's what makes it extraordinary. It's mathematical, emotional, and thoughtful all at once. It's exhilarating, even in the face of failure. It's compelling, even though we often lose. Victory is the goal, but that's just an afterthought here--it's the complex journey that counts.

With a focus on variety and replayability, this sequel has an answer to most of my complaints about 2012’s excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and aside from some mostly cosmetic bugs, it comes together brilliantly. Thanks to a new spin on the same great tactical combat, plus unpredictable maps and randomized objectives and loot, XCOM 2 is an amazing game I’ll easily put hundreds of hours into.

In spite of a few glaring technical issues, XCOM 2 represents a high water mark for the entire franchise. Firaxis successfully tells an evocative story. It treats players with respect and includes so many small quality of life improvements over the original they are simply too numerous to mention. It is challenging enough at its basic difficulty level to feel like a complete experience. Despite the bugs, it's still the best-looking, most exciting turn-based tactical game I've ever played.

Back of the box stuff. Looks good, but does it really make much of a difference? Moment to moment, the thing that makes this astonishing game truly sing is the way in which it's managed to respond to the bad habits we picked up last time around. Move faster, it urges. Take more risks. Become a more interesting player.

XCOM 2 isn't a reworking of the original game, then - it's a genuine response to it. A response to us. Turns out Firaxis was on overwatch all along.

Winckle wrote:Weird that it's PC exclusive. I had heard it was popular on consoles. They'll bring it to consoles a year later as "The definitive edition" or something, a bit like Diablo 3 did.

It's especially strange to see "exclusive" used, usually that term seems to imply that Mr console has forked over some money to keep the game on one platform.Unless they've massively changed the controls/interface to mouse based I can't see a reason for it to not turn up on console at some point

I haven't read through the news in any detail so maybe it's just IGN being so blown away by it that they've made that word choice themselves

Winckle wrote:Weird that it's PC exclusive. I had heard it was popular on consoles. They'll bring it to consoles a year later as "The definitive edition" or something, a bit like Diablo 3 did.

It's especially strange to see "exclusive" used, usually that term seems to imply that Mr console has forked over some money to keep the game on one platform.Unless they've massively changed the controls/interface to mouse based I can't see a reason for it to not turn up on console at some point

I haven't read through the news in any detail so maybe it's just IGN being so blown away by it that they've made that word choice themselves

Apparently they've going to add mod support and basically made a more complete game with added features but not having to worry about cross platform support.

I'll get my farewells to post-November 2015 Earth life out the way now, once this hits I likely won't be seeing any of you again. Just keep the power running for me, and I hope you get the whole dwindling natural resources thing sorted out. Ok, bye.

We want to give you an update on the release date for XCOM 2. We’ve set a high bar for the sequel and the entire team has been working hard to make sure we deliver a great follow-up to Enemy Unknown. We just need a little more time to make it the best possible game.

With XCOM 2, we want to have more depth, more replayability, and more investment in your soldiers and this extension will give us the time we need to deliver on our promise to you.

We appreciate your patience and continued support as we move towards February. Good luck, Commander!

That gameplay video looks a little unpolished (especially graphically) so it definitely needs a bit more time in development.

Really like how you can now carry injured squad members back the the evac zone, not sure about the snake alien having an insta-kill attack and being able to hack turrets looks great (finally might have a practical use for the drones).